Author Harper Lee’s famous classic To Kill a Mockinbird will be available on eBook and Audiobook from July 8, according to HarperCollins.

In a statement, Lee, now 88, said that “I’m still old-fashioned. I love dusty old books and libraries…I am amazed and humbled that Mockingbird has survived this long. This is Mockingbird for a new generation.”

First published in July 1960, Mockingbird has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide and still sells more than one million copies a year, according to HarperCollins.

eBook lending supplier Overdrive has not yet announced if it will hold the eBook for lending through libraries.

When Google closed its eBook delivery network to bricks and mortar booksellers earlier this year, it sent news-waves throughout the bookselling and publishing industry that eBook’s weren’t taking off in line with expectations.

The decision by Google to end the ebook reseller program has been met with much disappointment. Emily Powell, head of Powell’s books, one of the sixteen resellers, said it was ‘extremely disappointing.’

Perhaps it was too good to be true to start with; Google, a large multinational, partnering with independent booksellers all over the world (including Dymocks in Australia) to deliver ebook content to consumers.

After all, it hadn’t been done before. Amazon has clung rigidly to control of its kindle empire, Kobo has integrated with a select few ebook stores ( I can only think of Indigo and Borders) and Barnes and Noble have kept their NookBooks to themselves. So was Google’s ebook reseller program destined to fail?

Finally, all seven Harry Potter books are now available as ebooks! But news to us muggles is that no DRM may be the future of DRM.

With J.K.Rowling’s release of all the Harry Potter books exclusively through Pottermore this week, without DRM, publishing companies and booksellers have realised that a new way of protecting ebooks may be here, thanks to wizardry.

The New York Times broke the news this weekend. First as an e-book through The Writer’s Coffee Shop, now as a $1million deal with Random House publishing. For most works, the traditional publishing path has been to be discovered by a publishing house, then released as an eBook and print. But newly discovered author E.L.James has created something out of the linear order.

Earlier last week, the Sydney Morning Herald reported “E-book deal’s the steal of the century” (Feb 29, 2011), reporting on a deal published on Cudo’s website. What was it? An e-Reader selling for $99 including 4000 ebooks, many of them under copyright, and had actually been pirated. It included popular books such as Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings.

It was indeed a deal too good to be true. The deal was soon pulled off the site, with purchasers offered an alternative e-Reader. But what does this incident show, and how might publishers respond? 2012 is indeed the National Year of Reading, what impact will this have?

This is what every library, no matter how big or small, dreads to hear. Over the past few years, library associations worldwide have been negotiating with publishers for better loan agreements for e-books. But the consequences go beyond the library. If publishers don’t release more loans onto ebook libraries, publishers will be left in the dust as a whole new generation stampedes into a brave new world…